The World Wide Web has become a major force for both individuals and business. But there are problems for both Visitors (any person or businesses visiting a Website) and the businesses behind a Website (any business using the World Wide Web to offer products or services).
Visitors need more Privacy                Websites treat all Visitors the same, or worse, they try to guess what Visitors want based on secretly collecting data using techniques like behavioral profiling. In spite of this, Visitors waste time trying to find what is needed because Websites often have low Relevance with their Content and/or Ads (Content/Ads). For example and referring to FIG. 1, a large Ad blocked the Content of a Website that the inventor of the present invention visited. The inventor has no interest in purchasing alcoholic beverages, so this wasted his time.        Websites usually have Privacy Policies stating that Privacy is very important, but the corresponding Terms of Service (or equivalent) undoes all of this with legalese stating that if any Visitor's personal information is lost or misused, the Website cannot be held responsible. The Visitor remains 100% liable for problems he or she did not create.        Visitors have no control over how their data is collected or used by a Website or how it is shared with other firms.        Visitors have no way to share how they have been treated by a Website, and no way to learn from other Visitors about how they have been treated by that Website.        Visitors have no warnings about a Website that does not respect Privacy.        Visitors have no way to have a private, controlled Dialogue with a Website to get additional information, make suggestions, discuss problems, etc.        
Websites need to be more Relevant                Websites are always looking for ways to increase revenue and margins, but the Web has turned many of their products and services into commodities. There are few ways for a Website to differentiate and protect margins either by the products and services being offered or by being Privacy Champions.        Relevance builds Visitor loyalty, but this is hard to achieve because of the ease of switching Websites to find a better price. This switching reduces Visitor loyalty and Website revenue. A Website needs to focus more on what is needed, rather than what it sells if it wants to increase Visitor Relevance, loyalty, and profitability.        A Website has no way to start a Visitor Dialogue, mend a damaged Visitor relationship, or reactivate a lapsed Visitor relationship unless that Visitor has Registered with that Website.        A Website has no way to share Visitor experiences with other Websites.        Serving Ads that are not Relevant wastes Visitor time and reduces Website Ad revenue. Referring again to FIG. 1, a large Ad blocked the Content of a Website that the inventor visited. The inventor has no interest in purchasing alcoholic beverages, so this eliminated the opportunity for the Website to generate revenue from this Ad.        Trying to increase Relevance by secretly collecting additional behavioral data may violate Visitor Privacy and make a Website less attractive to Visitors who value their Privacy. While this is a growing problem in the U.S., this is already a major problem in countries that follow the European Data Directive, and may become an even bigger problem with the proposed European Data Regulation.        
Prior Art
Obtaining the proper balance of Privacy and Relevance is one of the major problems in businesses today. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems work on the know-thy-customer principle, believing that the more a business knows about a person, the better that business can serve that person. Prior art with CRM, behavioral profiling, tracking, cookies, adware, keyboard sniffing, Web bugs, spyware, etc. have all created a hostile environment summarized by industry analysts, as in the Gartner® Top End User Predictions for 2010: Coping with the New Balance of Power. It concludes:                The potential backlash from consumers on Internet marketing cannot be underestimated. Eventually marketers WILL abuse the Internet channel and annoy customers enough to generate an outcry strong enough to push legislation regulating Internet marketing activity. Consequences will include:                    That companies focusing primarily on the Internet for marketing purposes could find themselves unable to market effectively to customers, putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.            Vendors that focus solely or predominately on producing Internet marketing could find themselves faced with a declining market, as companies shift marketing funds to other channels to compensate.                        
Since the mid-90's Privacy Policies have attempted to solve these problems, but these have not been successful. Privacy Policies tell Visitors what rights they have, but their corresponding Terms of Service ensure that these rights seldom stand up in court. For example, the Google® Terms of Service disclaimer has wording that removes Visitor rights, and the exact wording can be found on tens of millions of other Websites! Visitors have no Website Privacy rights.
On Dec. 1, 2010, The Federal Trade Commission released its “do not track” guidelines for the Internet. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said “the report shows a failure of private industry to adequately address customer privacy concerns online. Despite some good actors, self-regulation of privacy has not worked adequately and is not working adequately for American consumers. We deserve far better from the companies we entrust our data to, and industry as a whole needs to do a far better job.” More than two years later, “do not track” practices have still not been implemented and the Digital Advertising Alliance®, which claims to represent more than 5,000 companies, has told its members to “simply ignore” any “do not track” request.
Privacy outside U.S. is far more important because people in many countries are already protected by laws such as the European Data Directive, and the proposed European Data Regulation may give citizens even more rights, including the “right to be forgotten.” This puts U.S. companies doing business outside the U.S. at a disadvantage because few have the required Privacy expertise. In fact, some compliance requirements have even been called “technically impossible.” And even if compliance was easy, U.S. companies certainly do not want to risk taking better care of overseas Visitors than they do with their own U.S. Visitors.
One reason why Websites cannot protect Visitors is that personal information must travel from Visitors' devices, through the Web, to the Websites. Personal information is managed by millions of hardware components and millions of lines of code written by thousands of people from dozens of companies. No Website wants to assume the liability for all of this.
Lessons from Google®
In 2007, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt was asked to define Web 3.0. He defined it as a different way of building applications:                By piecing them together,        Where data is in the cloud,        That run on any device,        That are very Customizable.        
This common practice has resulted in the steady decline of Privacy. Not surprisingly, Google® is now being sued more often by groups and governments that do not want increased Relevance at the expense of reduced Privacy. A better answer would have been a different way of building applications:                That focus on what a person wants,        Where data is protected in the cloud,        That run privately on any device,        That are Customized to what a person wants, not what is being sold.        
What is needed is a way to increase Visitor Privacy, while at the same time, increase Website Relevance.